Knesset Appeals to Soviet Government to Permit Jewish Emigration

December 7, 1961

JERUSALEM (Dec. 6)

An appeal to the Soviet Union to grant its Jewish communities freedom of cultural religious and national life and grant every Jew who wishes the right to leave for Israel was embodied in a resolution approved last night by the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.

Expressing “deep concern” for the fate of Soviet Jewry, the resolution asked the Soviet Union to grant such opportunities to Russian Jewish communities without discrimination as guaranteed in the Soviet constitution. The Knesset committee discussed the issue of the recent arrests of Soviet Jewish lay religious leaders after the matter was raised in the Knesset on November 15 and referred to the committee.